Faces of the Festival - Daniel Belton - Good Company Arts
Meet Daniel Belton, artistic director of Good Company Arts. Daniel is bringing two exciting contributions to this year’s programme: the world premiere of his latest dance film, HORSES, and an artist talk at Te Papa exploring his creative process. Together, these events highlight the festival’s commitment to presenting innovative artistic work alongside cultural traditions, offering audiences fresh ways to connect with both heritage and contemporary expression.
How long have you been involved in the Wellington Lunar New Year Festival and what ethnic community/culture do you associate yourself with.
With Good Company Arts I have really enjoyed sharing our dance-film and print work for LNY festival in recent years - we have been honoured to premiere our Asia-Pacific dance films TIGER (Silver-Lotus) and DRAGON in the Zodiac years of the Tiger (2022) and Dragon (2024). This year we complete the trilogy with HORSES for the incoming year of the horse. Other works like ASTROLABE - Whakaterenga, and TAIAO (POIPOI) also celebrate the Pacific bridge to Asia through dance, music and cinematic storytelling with Chinese, Japanese, Singaporean, and Filipino artists featured alongside artists of Aotearoa New Zealand.
For the 2026 Festival, what is your role, and what traditions or elements from your culture are you most excited to share with Wellingtonians this year?
HORSES brings together another stellar team of collaborators from Japan and Aotearoa. We are excited to share this work alongside TIGER and DRAGON in a series of free screenings at Te Papa for LNY Festival.
Lunar New Year is celebrated across many cultures. How does your own cultural heritage shape the way you participate in the festival programme?
I'm a New Zealander with Irish, Welsh and Scottish ancestry and I have Māori and Samoan family connections on my father’s side. Many of GCA's Asian collaborators have become friends through years of recurring collaboration between Japan, China, Singapore etc. They are my Asian whānau collectively! I love the way the LNY festival celebrates and generously embraces all cultures, while highlighting the beauty and power of Asian culture.
What has been a standout or memorable moment for you from past festivals, and why does it continue to inspire your involvement?
ASTROLABE - Pounamu at Te Papa, representing the serpent in a 15m wide print installed on the museum entrance facade in 2022, plus the film that companioned it! TAIAO (POIPOI) at City Gallery in 2021 also for LNY festival. Being supported to showcase the world premieres of TIGER and DRAGON which have gone on to win multiple awards in the global film circuit - raising the universal languages of dance and music in cinema.
Looking ahead to the 2026 celebrations, what is the one highlight you’d encourage people not to miss, and what do you hope it helps them understand about your culture and the wider Lunar New Year community in Wellington?
So many great things to experience in the programme! Taiko drummers and dragon dancers, mirroring the sounds of galloping of horses will welcome in the Lunar New Year of the Horse, for sure this will be fun and loud!
Fireworks will be stunning - 21st Feb starting at 9:30 PM from 12 Queens Wharf. The craft stalls and food hall will be amazing as always - and the cultural showcase at TSB Arena’s stage will uplift with song, dance and music through brilliant traditional and contemporary performances.
I'm giving a free talk and screening our Asia-Pacific dance films trilogy at Te Papa on the 21st starting 7:30PM for about 45mins or so - very informal and then theres time to catch the fireworks afterwards. My partner in work and life, Donnine will also be there (she is GCA's creative producer), and I'm really grateful to Tānemahuta Gray who will karakia to open the talk.
Joshua Faleatua & Tyler Carney-Faleatua perform in this new work and are stunning next to the incredible LiLika Takizawa, Karim Araoka and Tsukushi-Mai master dance artist Nao Kamei. Kamei-san’s ancient traditional dance dialogues with the hip-hop mastery of the team in our upcoming high energy opus HORSES.
Mark de Clive-Lowe’s powerful and super dancey electronic brand new score has to be my favourite of the three - this time bringing the taonga pūoro magic of Mahina Kingi-Kaui and Ariana Tikao to new heights as we celebrate the incoming ‘Year of the Horse’ with this exciting collaboration.
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